my year 'off'

You probably think I'm taking a year off.

I mean, most people do.

A year off. A break. Something different, something better, more fun, less stressful.

Sounds enviable -- can I have one?

This year doesn't have much to do with what that little tag-a-long "off" connotes. I may be doing something different than what I was doing before, but since I opted not to do a victory lap that was sort of inevitable. It is not better, or more fun, or less stressful. Just different.

My problem may be semantic. What am I supposed to be taking a year off from? A career? A degree? A carefully crafted plan for the future? I didn't have those things to begin with.

What then -- life?

As far as I can tell, this is life -- or as life-like as the rest of it has been. It's not exactly radical for me to be engulfed by someone else's culture or expect to have to pick up my bags and leave in the foreseeable future. In my mental mailbox there is always an eviction notice -- if not in someone else's handwriting, then in my own.

The end of this Spain stint won't be a resumption, even if it is a return (to Montreal...to school...?) It'll be a set change, just like this one.

There is no intermission in this show.